Encounters: The Penobscot River Main Text: The Penobscot River has been home for the Penobscot Nation for generations. It is a vital part of their identity, a source of sustenance, and a place of connection and contention with outsiders since the first arrival of European explorers. Protection of the river, their ancestral home, continues to be of critical importance to the Penobscot Nation. All Wabanaki peoples make their homes on and around rivers. The Passamaquoddy live along the St. Croix River watershed and the bays it feeds. The Maliseet, the People of the Beautiful River in their own language, live along the St. John. The Aroostook Band of Micmac live along the upper reaches of the Penobscot and St. John Rivers, while Mi’kmaq bands in Canada reach from the St. Lawrence the rivers of Nova Scotia and bays of Newfoundland. Right Column: The People of the Penobscot have always believed that this river was our life-blood. -Butch Phillips, Tribal Elder, Penobscot Nation Penobscot River at dusk, Photo by Chris Sockalexis. Follow-on Text: Learn how the Penobscot Nation has joined in an unprecedented coalition to restore the health of their ancestral river. 1 Section: “The Penobscot River Restoration Project” Main Text: The Penobscot River Restoration Project represents an unprecedented collaboration between the Penobscot Nation, local and national conservation groups, hydropower companies, the state of Maine, and the federal government to restore the health of the Penobscot River. The Penobscot River Restoration Project seeks to revive and revitalize the river as a sustaining and sustainable cultural and economic resource for both native and non-native Mainers alike. This collaboration has thus far returned species such as the Atlantic salmon, alewives, and sturgeon to the waters of the Penobscot Indian reservation for the first time in nearly two-hundred years, marking a critical milestone in preserving the subsistence fishing rights and cultural practices of the Penobscot people. Right Column: [video, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nu0v8oyLqA] Veazie Dam Removal. Joseph Dana of the Penobscot Indian Nation paddles a traditional birch-bark canoe past the breaching. Photo by Meagan Racey, USFWS. Follow-on Text: Find out how the Penobscot Nation’s work to protect their river from pollution has been helped and hampered by federal and state legislation. 2 Section: “The Clean Water Act” Main Text: Increasing settlement and industry began to pollute the Penobscot River in the mid-1800s. By the early 1900s, the waters of the Penobscot were unsafe for children to play in, and the fish caught were too toxic to eat. The Federal Clean Water Act of 1972 was a turning point for the Penobscot River. Towns and mills along the waterway were ordered to reduce industrial and municipal waste discharges into the river. And the Penobscot Nation established a water quality monitoring program to ensure upstream and downstream compliance. Since the legislation came to be law, there have been ongoing disagreements about who can and should enforce water quality standards on the river—the state, the federal government, or the Penobscot Nation. This issue remains unresolved to this day. Right Column: [Clean_Water.mp4 video] Excerpt from The Penobscot: Ancestral River, Contested Territory, produced by the Sunlight Media Collective, 2015 We have a body of water around our reservation that’s not fit for fishing. We’re very restricted in terms of how we can practice our right to fish because the fish are not fit to eat. -Kirk Francis, Penobscot, Chief, Penobscot Indian Nation Follow-on Text: Learn more about how Penobscot guides connect non-Native visitors to their homeland and their culture. 3 Sub-Section: “In Depth: The Clean Water Act and the Penobscot River” Main Text: As early as the mid-1800s, textile factories and paper mills along the Penobscot River began to pollute the river with waste water containing chemicals such as mercury, dioxin, bleaches, and dyes. As the towns along the river grew, they too began to contribute to the pollution through municipal sewer discharge. By 1959, the water in the river had become so contaminated that the city of Bangor stopped drawing their municipal drinking water supply from the river. For the Penobscot Nation, this meant that the waters throughout their reservation were unsafe for their children to play in, let alone drink, and that the fish they had subsisted on were too toxic to eat. The passage of the federal Clean Water Act in 1972 was a turning point for the river and the Nation. It required towns and mills to significantly reduce their discharge of pollutants. In 1992, in cooperation with the Department of Environmental Protection, the Penobscot Nation established their water quality monitoring program which continues today. Implementation of the Clean Water Act has, however, been a contentious issue on the Penobscot River. Disagreements between the tribe and the state have arisen about who should ultimately regulate water quality. The Penobscot Nation has been given jurisdiction and authority by the Environmental Protection Agency to monitor water quality and pollution discharges in the Penobscot River, while the state has granted itself concurrent jurisdiction, leading to legal ambiguity regarding enforcement and jurisdiction. The Penobscot Nation has argued in several court cases that the river is part of their reservation, and that for this reason the federal government and the tribe, not the state, should have jurisdiction. This issue remains unresolved today. The Old Town mill at Great Works on the Penobscot River. Photo by Chris Sockalexis. 4 Section: “Joseph Attean, Joe Polis, and Henry David Thoreau” Main Text: American writer and philosopher Henry David Thoreau first traveled into the upper reaches of the Penobscot River in 1846. However, it was his later trips with Penobscot guides Joseph Attean and Joe Polis that radically altered his views and dispositions towards Native Americans. Prior to this journey, he viewed Native Americans through the stereotypes of the time - as disappearing, noble savages. Through his journey and personal interactions with the Wabanaki, he came to a new understanding of the people and their homeland that included respect and reverence for both the past and the present. Wabanaki guides continue to preserve cultural traditions and help people connect to the Maine wilderness today. Right Column: [Video: https://vimeo.com/117003187] Courtesy of the Maine Office of Tourism. Thoreau’s journeys to the Maine woods with Attean and Polis changed his perceptions of what it meant to be a Native American in a rapidly changing world. –James Eric Francis, Sr., Penobscot Tribal Historian Follow-on Text: Learn how decades of treaties with the Penobscot and other Wabanaki nations made promises that were eventually broken. 5 Sub-Section: “In Depth: Joseph Attean, Joe Polis, and Henry David Thoreau” Main Text: The upper reaches of the Penobscot River extend into an area that well-known writer and philosopher Henry David Thoreau described in his 1864 book, The Maine Woods. Thoreau’s travels between 1846 and 1857 and his deep appreciation for the natural and cultural splendor of this wilderness would not have been possible without the support of his two Penobscot guides, Joseph Attean and Joe Polis. More importantly, this period that Thoreau spent with Attean and Polis began to change his stereotypical 19th century views of Native Americans as “disappearing, noble savages.” Instead, his interactions with Attean and Polis reshaped his thinking and replaced his cultural stereotypes with a more nuanced understanding that included respect and reverence. Joseph Attean Henry David Thoreau Joe Polis The accounts of Thoreau’s travels also served to introduce the world to the great adventures available in the Maine woods, inspiring generations of people to travel upriver to the Penobscot River’s headwaters. And while the main stem of the river from Millinocket seaward has changed dramatically since Thoreau’s time, the branches, tributaries, and lakes to the north are largely unchanged. This part of the Penobscot Nation’s ancestral river homeland is still important to the tribe for traditional activities, but now also provides wilderness and cultural tourism. In 2014, in commemoration of the 1864 publication of The Maine Woods, a group of Wabanaki guides, Thoreau scholars, and Maine Guides navigated a carefully-planned sixteen day canoe trip based on the itinerary of Thoreau’s July 1857 trip. The 150th Anniversary Thoreau-Wabanaki Tour, 2014. Photo by Chris Sockalexis. 6 Section: “Promises Made, Promises Broken” Main Text: Early interactions between the state and the Wabanaki were not always marked by hostilities. The Wabanaki Nation secured promises from the colonial government to protect their lands from encroachment by settlers in exchange for support in the growing conflict with Britain. Despite early promises to protect Penobscot territory, the loss of land and river escalated quickly throughout the 18th and 19th centuries. A homeland encompassing the entire river system was reduced to a collection of islands and a stretch of the Penobscot River, the result of settlement growth, further land exchange via treaty, and the construction of dams which altered the landscape. Right Column: [Video: Early_Promises.mp4] Excerpt from The Penobscot: Ancestral River, Contested Territory, produced by the Sunlight Media Collective, 2015. Pawling, Micah A., and Donald G. Soctomah, “Defining Native Space,” in The Historical Atlas of Maine, edited by Stephen J. Hornsby and Richard W. Judd, cartographic design by Michael J. Hermann (Orono, ME: University of Maine Press, 2015), plate #23. Follow-on Text: Find out how early encounters with Europeans shaped Penobscot attitudes towards these outsiders. 7 Sub-Section: “In Depth: Promises Made, Promises Broken” Main Text: As the non-Native population of what is now Maine grew, the loss of the Penobscot’s territory along their ancestral river grew apace.